Civil Engineering Resources
Everything QSCivilCalc publishes as reference material, in one place — the formulas behind the tools, the calculators themselves, and the written guides that explain when each one applies. All free, no account needed.
Reference material
Written references you can read, quote and cite — independent of any calculator.
Engineering formula reference
Around thirty core formulas across concrete, reinforced concrete, structural analysis, levelling, traversing, highway geometry, earthwork, hydraulics and quantity surveying. Each gives the symbols, the units they must be in, a worked example with real numbers, and the mistakes that most often produce a wrong answer.
Open the formula reference →Engineering guides
The written guide attached to every calculator — what the method assumes, which standard it follows, a worked example and answers to the questions engineers actually ask. Indexed here by discipline.
Browse the guides →Unit conversion reference
Conversion factors given to their full defined precision, each marked as exact, derived or genuinely regional — including the South Asian land units (marla, kanal, sarsai, cent, guntha) reconciled against the acre, and the US survey foot trap that costs 20 mm over 10 km.
Open the conversion reference →Civil engineering glossary
Sixty-two terms from surveying, concrete, structural work, highway design and quantity surveying — bearing, azimuth, latitude and departure, Bowditch rule, RL, BM, BOQ, BBS, slump, PCC and RCC among them — each defined around the distinction that causes mistakes, and linked to the tool or formula that uses it.
Open the glossary →Surveying & GIS resources
GNSS and the WGS 84 datum, UTM zones and their exceptions, grid convergence and scale factor — including why a grid distance is not the distance you tape — bearings, traverse adjustment, levelling, and the CSV, KML and KMZ formats field data moves in.
Open the surveying reference →Quantity surveying reference
How work is measured and priced: the standard methods of measurement, the rules that decide what a rate is deemed to include, the deduction thresholds that cause most disputes, the take-off workflow and rate build-up.
Open the QS reference →Construction site reference
Site practice for concrete and masonry — curing periods, formwork striking times, cover and detailing limits, concreting under water, the defects that signal an upstream problem, and what each site test does and does not prove.
Open the site reference →Calculators by discipline
Twenty-one tools, each with its formula written out and a worked example on the page. Nothing to install and no login.
| Discipline | Tools | What they answer |
|---|---|---|
| Material & quantity | Concrete, Brick, Steel weight, Plaster, Tile, Paint | How much material to order, and what it will cost |
| Structural | Beam load, Column load, Staircase, Excavation | Reactions, moments, member sizes and earthwork volumes |
| Highway geometry | Horizontal curve, Vertical curve, Superelevation | Curve elements, setting-out tables and transition design |
| Surveying | Traverse, Levelling & cut/fill, UTM converter — see also the surveying reference | Closure, adjustment, reduced levels and coordinate conversion |
| Converters | Unit converter, UTM / lat-lon / DMS | Length, area, volume, weight, pressure, temperature and land measure |
| Field app | Survey GeoLink | Live GNSS coordinates, saved points and CSV/KML/KMZ exchange, offline |
How these resources are put together
Standards are cited only where they can be checked. Clause numbers appear on the formula reference only for standards that are openly published and were read directly — IS 456:2000, for instance. Documents behind a paywall, such as AASHTO, ACI 318 and the BS series, are named at document level and never quoted clause by clause. Where a design limit depends on one of those, the reference says so and tells you to check the governing document.
Worked examples are arithmetically checked. Every number in a worked example on the formula reference is recomputed before publication, so the figures shown are the figures the method actually produces.
Using this material elsewhere
These pages are free to quote, link and use in teaching material — a link back is welcome but not required. Each reference page carries a suggested citation and the date it was last updated.
If something here is wrong, unclear or missing a case you rely on, tell us — corrections are published with the page's updated date. Engineers who want to contribute a guide or reference can apply through the contributor programme.
